Recently we had posted on the controversies surrounding the GWU-CII summit, primarily alleging that GWU had allowed the summit to be used for propaganda by Big Pharma. While Indian civil organisations had written letters to the Minister of Commerce earlier, 9 US NGOs have now also written to GWU calling for a stop to the fronting of biased industry-sponsored training in India. These include NGOs such as Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, MSF, Oxfam, KEI, etc.
Notably, the letter specifically points out the ostensible reasons that GWU gave while creating the India Project including focus on the protection of health in developing countries and a balanced discussion on IP, before going on to say that the vested interests of the sponsors in this discussion have led to an industry centric perspective and a US style regime of IP being misrepresented as independent academic exercises.
The full letter is available here.
This issue is being needlessly being raised as a controversy..As a former student of GWU Law School and having covered the IP sector(not legislatively, but business wise) for quite some time, i think that it is another of the type of rabble rousing tactics used by some groups who are making the debate for the patent law into a emotional issue pertaining to two themes ” aligining domestic laws with international conventions and protecting legitimate national” interests.
GWU-Law is respected institute much more respected than IITs also , in every academic parameter and having studied from their accliamed professors , i can vouch for their non-prejudicial view of municipal laws of India.What this summit aims to achieve is just the dialogue to enable a free flow of ideas, not a lobbying game where the unlucky ones are always ready to cry ” injustice” as and when their commercial interests ae fulfilled or articulated in a favourable fashion..
It is time that in India, we should allow ourselves to be judged in objective manner, not try to emulate the blind criticism that a ‘national’magazine from South India had done with respect to Shamnad Bhasheer’s thesis on India’s Patent Law and its funding from a US Foundation.This practice will be detrimental to us in innumerable ways in days to come if not corrected.
I am also a graduate of the GW Law school and I too vouch for the fact that the programs at GW Law encourages independent academic exercise and thinking.
It is unfortunate that attempts to inculcate a healthy discussion on a topic are taken in a complete different direction than what is originally intended. GW Law created the platform for providing an open debate between the practitioners of the two patent systems. These interactions and debates have been there since before adoption of section 3(d) in India.
Also, Shamnad taught a master’s level program at GW Law on TRIPS and public health while at GW Law.
All I am trying to say is that our patent laws have been made stronger in the publics favor-not weaker because of the interactions between the bodies. India did not and does not tow the US line on IP (India is still on the USTRs 301 watch list). See also the recent discussions on ACTA on the blog.
The attitude of not allowing discussions and creating needless controversies reeks of the hangover of a pre-colonial era of India.